Of Water And Falling Stars
by JuniperGentle
Summary: When the dark rolls back, the world is very different. Waking sick and exhausted in Magnolia Hospital, Fried has to have a stern discussion with himself – and perhaps some others too - about priorities. Second part of the "Of Thunder And Lightning" series, begun in "Of Poison And Gold".
1. Swamped

_Fried Justine Weekend was the 17th-18th over on Tumblr (the fact that it is not actually at the weekend is a long-standing joke), so in celebration of my favourite character of all time, here, have my long-delayed sequel to **Of Poison And Gold**._

* * *

 **Of Water And Falling Stars**

 **Chapter 1 – Swamped**

The light was low and red, a candle flickering somewhere close by. But he was too tired to open his eyes and find out – and besides, it was warm here under the blankets.

"-not sure if they'll -"

"-f we gave them another dose?"

The voices faded in and out of his awareness as he drifted on the edge of wakefulness, barely aware of anything except the growing sensation of a bone-deep ache in every limb. He knew he should know what they were talking about, but his head hurt badly enough that he couldn't bring himself to the effort of focusing.

"-worried that they're not actually waking up."

"They should be coming round soon, Porlyuscia said."

"Yes, but that was two days ago. I don't know, Lisanna..."

"They'll be alright, sis. This _is_ the Thunder Legion we're talking about, after all."

He recognised the words, but the sentences refused to settle into his mind in a proper order for understanding. Swamped by the rising tide of pain running through his body, Fried abandoned the torturous process of waking in favour of sinking back under the black wave of sleep that swept him away into unconsciousness.

.

"I've never seen him like this before."

He knew that voice.

"It takes a lot to hurt a Fairy Tail wizard this badly, especially when they're as strong as these guys."

He knew that voice too.

"I know... it's just hard to see any of them like this. I never thought I'd see any of them hurt that badly again."

"Mira..."

 _Mirajane._ Something he hadn't realised was knotted up in his head gently unravelled. If she was here, that meant she was safe.

… safe from what?

"It's just like Laxus to go and get himself hurt even worse than he was just to help them."

"Fried's gonna be so mad when he finally wakes up."

That earned a weak "hah" of laughter from the other voice. "At Laxus?"

"And himself. You know what he's like when Laxus goes and does something stupid."

"You're right. Of course he won't blame it on Laxus. I just hope he's learned how to forgive himself by now."

"If not, you could always beat him up again? Worked last time."

" _Lisanna!_ "

The knot that had unravelled in his head was quickly being replaced with another, growing one. _LaxusLaxusLaxus_ , his brain clamoured, an uncomfortable echo of Bixlow's dolls. Laxus was hurt. He was...

 _blackchokingmistpaincan'tbreathelostpainwhereareyouhelpmehelpmepainmagicburnssomuchpainpainPAIN!  
_

"Fried!"

He wasn't quite sitting upright when he finally managed to wrench his eyes open to reveal the walls and curtains of Magnolia's hospital, but he had moved enough that every stiffened, overstrained muscle in his body had shrieked into full, painful wakefulness.

It _was_ Mirajane, and Lisanna beside her, both of them pale as they stepped forwards almost involuntarily, startled by his sudden return to awareness. Mira was the first to reach him, just in time to catch him around the shoulders as the surge of panicked energy that had forced him up subsided in a rush and he sank back into her support. With enormous effort, he forced his breathing to level out.

"Laxus?" he croaked.

Mira actually rolled her eyes at him as Lisanna tugged the pillows up so that Mira's arm wasn't the only thing keeping him upright, but he could see the fondness in her expression. "How did I know that was going to be the first word past your lips?" she asked, sliding her arm out from behind him. "He's still asleep, but he's right over there. And Evergreen's next to him, and Bixlow is next to you. You're all here. You're all safe now."

"Welcome back, by the way," Lisanna piped up. "We were getting really worried about you."

"Have... have Ever and Bix woken up yet?"

Lisanna's smile was brilliant. "Sure did! They woke up yesterday evening, you just took a bit longer coming back than they did."

The other knots in his mind started unwinding slowly. Good. They were safe. He looked down at his hands as he tried to call the scattered fragments of his narrative back into line and fill the gaps with paragraphs of memory. The green Fairy Tail brand was clear on his left hand, undarkened by the mist that had filled his vision the last time he remembered looking at it. It was a relief he felt down to the pit of his stomach, until he realised that even at rest on the blankets his hands were shaking as if he was bitterly cold.

"H-how long have I been asleep?"

This earned him a rather awkward shrug from Mira. "That depends on what you count as sleep, but... it's been nearly two weeks."

Two weeks since the attack at the restaurant – Yajima! "The old council members, are they safe?"

"You shouldn't be asking so many questions when you've only just woken up," Lisanna scolded, but Fried was watching Mirajane, and saw the flicker in her eyes.

"Mira?"

"It... it's a long story," she said. "We've been trying to piece everything together for the past few days to help with the reports, but..." She trailed off, catching Lisanna's eye. Now both of them were looking distressed.

"Reports? Am I to assume that this is mostly the fault of Natsu?" He had meant it as a half-hearted jest, but neither of them smiled. In fact, both of their faces fell further.

"A lot's happened since you brought Laxus and the others back from Hargeon," Lisanna said slowly. "And you're probably not going to believe about half of it because some of the people who were _there_ still can't believe it."

There was something very wrong. Neither of them were meeting his eyes any more, and there seemed to be a great weight pressing on them.

"Everyone's safe, aren't they?" He was distantly aware that his voice had cracked on the second word, but he didn't care. "They're all alive?"

Mirajane took a very deep breath. "All of the guild members are still alive," she said, placing a peculiar emphasis on _guild members_ , and Fried's stomach went tight with fear. Someone far less perceptive than he could easily have worked out that she was trying to skirt her way around something she really didn't want to say.

"Mira, what aren't you telling me?"

"Fried, I..."

"Mira." His voice was as cold as the fear eating away at his insides. "What. Happened?"

She suddenly buried her face in her hands and he saw her shoulders shake in a sob. "I'm so sorry, Fried. I'm sorry, I'm so _sorry..._ "

"Mira, just _tell me_." The fear was being replaced by dread as she looked between her fingers at him, eyes full of tears. "Please."

And, with words that stumbled reluctantly into the air, she told him what had really happened in Hargeon on the day that Laxus had meant to save them all.


	2. Dark Waters

**Chapter 2 – Dark Waters**

She found him on one of the bridges that crossed the river just outside of the hospital, leaning against the railing and staring down into the dark water, blank-eyed and far too pale. It was a surprise to see him, almost an unpleasant one despite the fact that she was delighted to see him alive. If rumours were correct, he had only woken up for the first time the afternoon before and was barely out of bed, and probably shouldn't have left the hospital building at all.

"Hey, Fried?"

He startled, but didn't look around, keeping his eyes fixed on the water. "Oh. Hello, Lucy."

She offered him her best smile, even if she wasn't certain he could see it. "I thought you'd still be in hospital. Has Laxus woken up?"

His answering smile was weak, but at least it was there. "No, he has not. I would still be there if I could. Porlyuschia needed to run a test of some kind, and so I was ordered out, along with Ever and Bixlow, lest we irritate her more than we probably already were. I'm afraid this is as far as I could get."

That didn't sound good. She knew how tired she'd been in the first couple of days after the attack on Tartarus was over, how deeply she had slept, how difficult it had been even to shuffle to the bathroom or kitchen. How much worse must he be feeling, magic gouged to the core by a vicious poison and strength sapped by a superhuman effort to save those he loved? He must still be utterly exhausted.

"Are you okay?"

It was a weak question, and she regretted it the second the words left her lips. But he seemed to be considering answering it, so she shut her mouth on the automatic apology she had been about to make.

"As much as I can be," was his eventual response, and she relaxed. It was the answer she had half-expected. After all, Fried's dedication to precision of language was legendary, so he was never going to give a ridiculously false answer like _yes, I'm perfectly fine, thank you._

"Then can... can I stay here for a bit?" It seemed rude to just lurk nearby without asking, even if she just wanted to watch the water go by as well.

"Of course."

Lucy leant on the railing, unconsciously mirroring his pose. The water running beneath the bridge was dark even in the morning sunlight. The boaters who usually called to her as she walked to and from her house never came down this far. The only things floating by were the pieces of vegetation ripped from the banks of the river higher up in the mountains where the current was faster and fiercer, which now curled and swirled dazedly in the water, unaware of their final destination. A branch with most of its leaves still clinging to it swept out from the shadow of the bridge, a flash of green in the dark water.

Aquarius probably would have complained bitterly about being summoned from a river swirling with dead and dying vegetation.

Lucy sighed and propped her chin on one hand. There was almost nothing in the world that she wouldn't give to be scolded by Aquarius again, if only it could mean seeing her again. Then again, Aquarius had always complained about being summoned from almost all forms of water, except fresh sea water... and even then, the first time Lucy had summoned her from the sea in the bay of Hargeon, she had complained about Lucy dropping the keys.

 _Hargeon..._

Lucy glanced sideways at Fried. He was still unmoving, and unless she watched very closely for the slightest shift of his coat, she might have wondered if he had turned to stone. Did he know what had really happened that day when he thought he'd managed to save everyone? If he didn't, was she the right person to tell him that the Master of the guild he loved so much had lied to him without blinking? She swallowed, suddenly uncertain of what she was about to do. It was the right thing to do, she was certain of that. But she had no idea how he would react.

"Fried... about Hargeon..."

"I know, Lucy."

And suddenly the deadness in his voice and the unnatural stillness in his body made perfect sense to her. "Fried, I... I'm so sorry..."

He made no answer, merely staring down into the water below them as if he was separated from it only by inches instead of several feet. Finally, he said "People keep saying that to me. I'm not sure why."

Lucy tried to come up with an answer, but she couldn't find one that she could bear to say aloud. _We thought we were losing you, we thought we'd_ lost _you, the lie didn't matter, the lie we told to the man for whom words are the perfect truth_ didn't matter _because he'd never live to find out..._

"Did you never wonder?" His eyes swung up to meet hers for the first time, and she felt a thrill of shock as she realised how blank they were, how _dead._ There was no question that he was still beyond exhaustion, but she was beginning to feel as if there was something else there too. "You know as well as anyone that of the four people there, Laxus was the most important to me. Did you not wonder why I rescued him last?"

She shrugged, avoiding his gaze uncomfortably. "It... it crossed my mind."

"Because that was the only way to save them all," was the answer, unexpected and matter-of-fact.

"What do you mean?"

He took a deep breath and looked away, back at the water. "When everything went dark, and Laxus ordered me to save everyone, Yajima was the closest to me. He was the person I took as I escaped. I went back out of bravado to get Bixlow. I went back the second time because I would be a poor friend indeed if I left Evergreen to the poison." He suddenly stopped and swallowed, closing his eyes.

"You... you don't have to tell me," Lucy said, realising from his shifting expression that he was reliving something she couldn't imagine. She wasn't completely sure why he was talking to her like this either – it wasn't as if she was someone he spoke to regularly, and Fried had never been one for revealing his innermost thoughts to anyone. "I don't have to know."

He glanced up at her again, and he looked so tired. Almost hopeless. "No, you don't have to know. But you have to understand."

She didn't understand at all, though. She wanted to – if only she could help him now, perhaps the second-hand guilt at being silent through the lie would finally die – but what he had gone through was so far beyond her experience that it was sympathy that welled up instead of empathy.

 _Precision of language,_ she thought to herself. _It really is important._

"Then I'll listen to everything you need to say," was all she said aloud. It was, after all, the only thing she could really give him, the only thing that might help.

Fried's expression was fixed, his eyes glassy. "I took Laxus last because he was the only person I would have gone back for that third time. Once, out of bravado, because I am a mage of Fairy Tail and we are bold. Twice, for duty, for I am a rune mage and am bound by my own rules more tightly than by gravity itself. The third... I could not have gone back that third time for anyone else. Not even if I was ordered to. Not you, or Master, or Mirajane, or even Ever or Bixlow. Just him." His eyes fluttered closed. "I always knew he was the only one I would ever die for."

"But you didn't die." It was all she could think of saying. "And that's a good thing, Fried."

But Fried didn't reply. For several long minutes, the only sound was the water rushing by beneath their feet, and the susurration of sound that every lively town has, even when that town has been nearly wrecked a week before.

"How much do you know about everything else that happened?" she asked at last, forcibly changing the subject in the hope of finding something easier to talk about. "With Tartaros, I mean."

"The basic details." His voice was bitter now. "We came back from Hargeon, Hargeon was placed under a state of emergency in which more than a hundred people died because of the Magic Barrier Particles despite everything that Laxus did, the guild declared war on Tartaros, Tartaros brought the fight to the guild, there were some fairly vicious battles and -" He stopped suddenly and looked at her, almost as if he was seeing her properly for the first time. "Lisanna told me you lost one of your Celestial Spirits in the battle. I'm sorry. I know how much you care about them."

 _Aquarius..._

"Did they tell you about the dragons?"

That actually got his attention. " _Dragons?"_ Something sparked back to life in his eyes. "Plural?"

"Yeah," she said, and though she knew how sad and terrible the ending had been she couldn't help smiling a little at the memory of five gobsmacked Dragon Slayers staring up at their parents. "And not just any dragons. Igneel, Metallicana, Grandine, Weisslogia and Skiadrum."

"The Dragon Slayers' dragons." Fried's expression finally gentled into something approaching emotion. "That would have been a sight to see. Lisanna's story got a little confusing just after she started talking about faces, and I fell asleep not long after that. I assume the dragons turned up some time later... though she did vaguely mention Acnologia."

Lucy turned back to the water. "I'm not sure anyone actually knows the full story of what happened," she admitted. "None of us saw everything. This was... it was just so much _bigger_ than anything I've seen Fairy Tail get into before. All the other times it's just been Fairy Tail, or maybe a couple of other guilds. This time... this time it was everyone, everywhere. There was just... so much damage."

"We should have been here to help," Fried said, and she looked at him in shock. Surely _we_ didn't mean Laxus and the other Raijinshuu? "If I'd been quicker to realise what was happening, if I'd brought everyone home faster, before the barrier particles really affected us, maybe we could have done something to help. The protective runes around the guild-hall might have been stronger. They probably could have withstood the blast, then at least we'd still have a guild-hall. I - we could have fought. We could have _helped._ "

That was the moment that Lucy finally understood what it was that had driven Fried out here alone, so far from all of the others.

A strange, aching sadness rose in a wave of compassion against her heart, breathtaking in its rise and leaving only stillness in its wake. A writer she might be, but she couldn't reach the words she wanted. Comfort seemed hollow, pity was contemptible, logic was far too cold.

And so she said nothing, and leaned against the railing of the bridge, and just stayed. Sometimes, silence said more than anything else.

.

Lucy had long since forgotten why she had ventured out into town in the first place. Somehow, it seemed to pale into insignificance when compared to standing on a bridge over a dark river for long, slow minutes as the sun climbed towards midday, one half of a silence that had too many wounds at its heart.

She would heal; she knew that in her head even as her heart ached. And he would heal too, eventually. But the scars from this battle would linger for much longer than they ever had before, and she had no way of knowing what echoes they might leave in the minds and hearts of those who had drowned in darkness.


	3. Low Tide

_Well, that happened. Or rather, didn't happen. Never mind! I'm back with my traditional birthday/anniversary-of-being-on-FanFiction chapter, with one of the trickiest characters in the canon to write._

* * *

 **Chapter 3 – Low Tide**

"Oh so _this_ is where ya went."

Fried jumped, then winced as the incautious movement pulled at still-strained muscles. "Oh. It's just you."

"Who'd ya think it was?" Bixlow asked, dropping heavily onto the sofa opposite Fried's chair in the hospital waiting room and sprawling inelegantly across the whole of it. "'s'not like there's anyone else around here apart from Ever and Scary Medicine Lady."

"Scary!"

"Scary!"

"Scaaaary!" That one was Pippi, who had never liked hospitals.

Fried raised a hand as Poppo hovered over to him, offering a carved wing for a strange version of a high-five. "So where did you go?"

Bixlow shrugged. "Just wandered around. Magnolia looks weird with the guild building gone. Bunch 'a people asked me how you and Ever and Laxus were, so I told 'em you were sulking and the other two were fine."

"They are not fine and I am _not_ sulking. I am tired and in pain and -"

"And really, really worried about Laxus, I know, me too." Bixlow tilted his head so that he was looking almost straight at Fried. "I'm messing with ya. I just said we all still needed time to recover, nothing else. Anyway, you're more exhausted than I thought if you're gonna just admit it flat out like that."

Fried didn't bother replying to that. For a short time, silence lay between them, stiff with unasked and unanswered questions. Fried could feel his body protesting the effort he had exerted earlier in the day, and resigned himself to a second uncomfortable, sleepless night. He was going to have to be more careful. The damage was heavier than he had thought and if he couldn't sleep because of it then healing was going to be a long and drawn-out process. Bixlow seemed to catch some of his thoughts on his face, because he leant forwards and asked "Hey, you okay? I mean, apart from all the stuff I already know about. _R_ _eally_ okay, not just tellin' me you are."

There was no quick answer to that, at least not one that wasn't wildly inaccurate, and he didn't have the energy to put the long answer into sentences that made enough sense. "Not really," he said finally, when Bixlow showed no sign of asking another, easier question. "But you already knew that. It's fine. I'm just tired, mostly."

"D'ya think you'd sleep better if you weren't so worried about him?"

The question was quiet and spoken in such a tone that Fried knew Bixlow already knew the answer. "Probably," he admitted. "It's not just him, though. Every time I closed my eyes last night, I kept thinking one of you had stopped breathing because it was so quiet, and kept getting up to check."

Bixlow's mouth twisted. "You're doin' that too? Hell, man, that sucks. I kept doing it the night after I woke up when you were still out and you _actually_ stopped breathing once."

"I'm sorry."

"What're ya apologising for? 's'not like it was your fault the antidote worked a bit weirdly on you and Scary Medicine Lady had to up the dose." Bixlow wouldn't look at him. "I'd already been thinking how awful it would be to lose Laxus, but I didn't think until that happened that I might lose you too. That was scary, man."

"Scary," whispered Poppo, who had snuggled up next to Fried and was trying to creep under his arm.

"Oh yeah," Bixlow said, deliberately changing the subject as the atmosphere grew heavy, "I ran into Levy and she said she'd drop by with a book you'd been talkin' about? Somethin' about socio-... socee-... somethin' about languages and people."

"Sociolinguistics," Fried said after a moment's thought. "It was months ago we were talking about that. Strange that she should remember it now."

Bixlow shrugged again. "No idea, man. You and your language stuff, I'll never understand it."

Fried opened his mouth to begin explaining exactly why language was the most primal force in the universe, and then felt the words turn into a yawn before they even managed to sound. "Aahh, why am I so tired? I've been asleep for almost two weeks."

"Severe magic burnout and deficiency sickness?" Bixlow suggested rather pointedly. "That's what Scary Medicine Lady called it, anyway."

Fried sighed exasperatedly. "That's not her name, Bixlow. Show some respect, she did save our lives."

If he'd been expecting anything, it wasn't that Bixlow would promptly sit up at that statement with a rare expression of absolute seriousness and say "No, she didn't. You were the one who did that."

"I think you'll find that I had nothing to do with the creation of the antidote that saved us and therefore did nothing of the sort, Bixlow."

Bixlow just laughed. "You're really smart, Fried, but you can be a real moron sometimes, ya know?"

Fried gave him the flattest look he was capable of, but couldn't think of a comeback quickly enough. Not that Bixlow was ever fazed by snappy retorts anyway.

"Ah, don't look at me like that, man. You got us the hell out of there, Fried. Me 'n Ever 'n old man Yajima were down, I know that much. And I've overheard the rest. What Laxus did. What _you_ did. You saved all our lives. There's at least four people on Earthland right now who directly owe you their lives, and you're a bigger moron than I think you are if you don't think that's something to be proud of."

Fried shook his head, looking away. "You'd have done the same thing if it was you."

That earned him a snort. "You really are bein' stupid now. You're the only one who could have done what you did. I'd have saved... maybe one person? My magic's not suited for transport. You figured out a way to make it work and got _everyone_ home – and my babies." When Fried glanced back at him, Bixlow's expression had shifted to something unreadable. "They told me what you did. You let 'em piggyback on your soul to get 'em safely back here. There's not many wizards – not many _people –_ who'd let something like that into their soul. You think I don't know how weird people find 'em? And most people don't know the true value of an uncorrupted soul. I do. And so do you, 'cause I told you."

"And you also know that my soul is far from uncorrupted, Bixlow. This conversation is pointless."

But Bixlow was looking straight at him, and even without being able to see his eyes the sincerity of his voice was enough to convince Fried that Bixlow was not trying to exaggerate. He was absolutely serious as he said "You cracked your soul into pieces to let 'em in, Fried, and you knew what you were doing when you did it. If you think I'm gonna forget about that in a hurry, you're dead wrong."

Fried suppressed a shiver at the tone in his friend's voice and hunched his shoulders over a little. "They're yours, Bixlow. I would never have forgiven myself if they'd been left behind. They're as much a part of the team as you are."

Bixlow's expression was still unreadable. "Then you saved nine lives in Hargeon, not four. And you should be damn proud of that, and I will never, ever stop owing you for it."

"There's nothing to pay back, don't be stupid, Bixlow. Besides, you've saved my life on missions before. It's no different." Fried gave up trying to look at Bixlow straight in the face and pulled his knees up to his chest so that he could set his chin on them. "If anything, Laxus saved them. He… he..."

Words were failing the man whose mastery of language was second to none. There were no words in any language to describe what Laxus had done for them, and for the citizens of Hargeon.

"I know," Bixlow said gently after a long pause. "Doesn't mean I'm gonna stop remembering you saved 'em too."

"I wish I could have saved them all."

He wasn't quite sure why that was the sentence that popped out of his mouth, but he'd said it before he could bring his tired mind to consider the implications. It wasn't quite true; he didn't _wish_ he could have saved everyone, he knew he _should_ have. That was what it meant to be a Fairy Tail wizard, wasn't it? To do the impossible to help everyone you could? They'd always managed it in the past, why hadn't he been able to do it this time?

Bixlow paused. Fried thought that he might have blinked at him in utter confusion, but the helmet hid his eyes. "Fried, what did I just say? You saved all of us. We'd be _dead_ without you. Mira said you got all of us back one by one, defended the guild from the stuff you brought back accidentally, raised the alarm so they could send out emergency troops, and still managed to be conscious enough to tell them exactly what happened."

"That's not what I'm talking about. I should have been able to think of something to protect more of the people. There must have been some kind of barrier I could have made to… to contain all of the particles, or nullify them somehow. Laxus shouldn't have had to put his life on the line like that, not when I could have _done_ something. Twice. I wasn't quick enough to protect him the first time, and too pathetic to help the second time. If I'd just been stronger he wouldn't have had to -"

"Fried," Bixlow cut across him, "Fried, you don't seriously think that you could have gone after Tempester for the antidote, do ya? You were _actively dying_ of poisoned magic. Even Scary –" Fried glared and he threw his hands up. "Fine, _Porlyuschia_ said it was a miracle any of us survived it. Our magic's still too low to do much more than glimmer, yours in particular – if you can set up a functional barrier right now I'll be amazed. You're shattered, man, in every possible way. And I know you're devoted to Laxus and you'd happily give your life to protect him, because hell knows I am and I would, but you gotta be realistic. You took a ton of damage for him. It's a miracle any of us are alive, let alone you, goin' back as many times as you did. And you're being ridiculous if you think you could have rescued every single person in Hargeon like that, I know what that spell does to your magic and how much concentration you need to do it, _especially_ carrying another person. Hell, just the four – wait, no, it must have been double that – _eight_ times you did it must have nearly killed you."

"Seven times. But people still died, Bixlow! Even after everything Laxus did, more than a hundred people died, even though -"

The memory sparked in his head; the familiar, much loved, deeply trusted voice heard through failing senses, reassuring that all was well, that the job was done, that the town was saved, that he had _taken everyone home._ On its heels was the memory of the horror on Mirajane's face when she had told him the final death toll.

 _He lied to me. He took words and turned them against me._

Fried closed his mouth with a snap, and looked away from Bixlow. The silence crackled, uncomfortable and strange between the man for whom words shaped all of existence and the man whose following souls echoed his every word. Poppo tried to nudge further under Fried's elbow, but he ignored the doll's efforts.

"There's somethin' you're not tellin' me," Bixlow said slowly. "It's makin' shadows on your soul – more than there are already, I mean. Last time I saw that happenin' you nearly died tryin' to build the Absolute Shadow runes on your own. I ain't lettin' that happen again. Tell me. Please, Fried."

It was strange, hearing such sincerity in Bixlow's voice for such a long period of time. Normally he'd have made at least one pun by this point, mostly because he knew exactly how much Fried loved them. The fact that his voice was still low and steady was the thing that unlocked the words that had shut themselves up in Fried's throat ever since he had woken up.

"I… just after we… just after I brought you all back," he began, "I told them Laxus had saved Hargeon. I asked if all the people were safe. The Master… the Master said yes. He said Laxus had saved the whole town. He… the Master lied to me."

For a moment, Bixlow looked puzzled, and then judging from the little Fried could see of them, his eyes went very wide.

"That's why I should have done more," he continued before Bixlow could open his mouth. "I should have done more, I should have protected Laxus, he wouldn't be in such a state right now if it hadn't been for me, it's my _fault..."_

Bixlow was clearly still trying to process the first half of Fried's sudden admission. "He did _what?_ " he spluttered. "The Master told you that…" He trailed off into a muttered sentence of curses, only audible because Pippi and Pappa echoed them.

Fried pressed his lips together to stop more words pouring out and looked away from his friend, over to the door behind him. Now would be a good time for someone else to arrive – Evergreen, or Porlyuschia, or even – no matter how small the chance was – even Laxus. Anything to change the subject.

Bixlow tilted his head back to rest it on the back of the sofa. "I was gonna yell at you for lettin' your soul get as weird as it's got, but frankly I'm beginnin' to understand why you're not acting right. Hell, man. That's bad. No wonder you're bein' unreasonable. You're too tired and worried to think straight so you're tyin' yourself up in knots over could-have-beens for somethin' you did everything in your power to help because your brain needs something to do that doesn't involve thinking about what _actually_ happened – the attack _and_ what happened afterwards. And to do that, you're startin' to fixate on Laxus and what happened to _him._ "

Fried stared at him, chills crawling up and down his spine. "What does _that_ mean?" he snapped finally, letting the stress and the exhaustion shatter the control he had on his fraying temper. Bixlow would know why, anyway.

Bixlow sighed, and didn't answer for a long time. Finally, he said "Means you're tryin' not to think about what happened to _you,_ and the easiest way of not doing that is to think about somethin' else. If you'd woken up first you'd have fixed on all of us but as it is you're just castin' around for a distraction because you feel like you've been through hell for nothing, you've lost so much of your magic you're terrified of being helpless, and the Master lied to you and you don't know how to deal with that. And I don't blame you, 'cause I don't know either."

Fried closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. Trust Bixlow to be the one who saw soul-deep, who put things into words that the master of languages never could. He leant forwards in his seat, setting his elbows on his knees and pressing the heels of his palms into his aching eyes. He was so tired.

"It's just… I thought I'd done enough."

Once again, the words weren't quite what he'd meant to say, and he didn't know where they had come from, but they were true.

But this time, Bixlow didn't answer. Instead, silence fell once more between them. All the energy that Fried had summoned to keep himself awake had ebbed away, leaving him hollowed out by the passing tides of pain and exhaustion, and even the simple act of thinking of a coherent sentence was drifting beyond his capabilities. There was nothing he could do any more.

 _He was so tired._


End file.
